Re: Sun Ra Chicago influence
Re: Sun Ra Chicago influence
i wish i could be there in chicago on aug 14th. cohran is planning a 'weighing of the soul' ceremony for sun ra.
on the points debated here, he is opinionated but clear. obviously there were a host of differences. cohran is of course reverent to sun ra, and sees his influence as extremely far-ranging - e.g. health foods and cleansing practices within the chicago african community spread to other places in the US and abroad, he says coming directly from sun ra. it is well-documented that sun ra influenced the nation of islam. the way cohran describes it is compelling. aacm meetings were first at his house. when sun ra played, a bunch of those guys were there night after night like clockwork. i expect to post the interview in the near future.
there is some sun ra tune w/ lyrics, 'give credit where credit is due' ... along the lines of 'face the music' .....
i met lewis this year, perhaps should give him a copy of the interview. cb
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Ed Rhodes erj@mindspring.com wrote:
George Lewis's new book on the AACM gives a somewhat different account of the circumstances under which Cohran left the organization. Lewis also interviewed Cohran and he quotes from other published interviews. Here is a verbatim quote (except for any typos).
Inevitably with such strong personalities around the meeting table, disagreements over aesthetics were taken personally. Philip Cohran began to feel that "Lester Lashley and Muhal, they were vociferous against any idea I put on the table. They would all jump on my ideas as wrong". Within six months of the October 1965 meeting, a number of members departed, including some who had been present at the organization's inception. As the AACM became better known, these private disagreements became public. Cohran told writer Bill Quinn in 1963 that "Under the structure of the AACM, the achievement of my longtime purposes was too limited for me to remain a member.: In an interview published in 2001, Cohran framed his differences with the AACM in terms of the role of tradition n the organization:
"My studies put me in the vein of studying the ancient music, and I became one who submits to his ancestors. In that way, I embrace their concepts of sound and thought, and I hope that someday I will be eligible to receive some of the knowledge they had and was lost. But most of the guys that came into the AACM wanted to take the music that Sun Ra was playing when they would play "out". they want to play "out" all the time because it didn't require any discipline. that was my opinion. Later on, they developed tremendous discipline, but at that time it was just playing notes. That didn't do it for me"
Cohran's final AACM concert took place at the St. John Grand Lodge on December 27, 1965. the event featured compositions by Gene Easton as well as Cohran's compositions. As Cohran put it in our interview, "I said, I may as well just get out of here and go ahead and do what I'm doing. I don't need nobody to tell me what I already know. I started producing my own thing, and a whol lot of guys left, mostly the traditional musicians, who were already accomplished. Ken Chaney, I think he left before I did, and Jimmy Ellis left".
Lewis also disputes the kinds of accounts of Sun Ra's influence on the AACM that have been published on this list and elsewhere, noting that Cohran is the only one of the early AACM members that has argued for a decisive influence. This discussion appears in several places though there is one section devoted explicitly to it. It is far more nuanced than I can convey here. Lewis has certainly done his homework.
Ed Rhodes
-----Original Message-----
From: charles blass charles.blass@gmail.com Sent: Jul 24, 2008 12:50 PM To: SATURN@NIC.SURFNET.NL Subject: Re: [SATURN] Sun Ra Chicago influence
around sunny's arrival day i interviewed phil cohran, who is a perfect gentleman and as previously posted is putting a tribute to SR together in chicago august 14th in millennium park. he is remarkably lucid for 81, and is adamant that the aacm founders were directly and greatly influenced by sun ra, hanging out nearly every night at the wonder inn, standing at the back to avoid table charges. in his view their imitation of sun ra to the detriment of originality caused him to leave the organization he helped form. he put it another way - they didnt have the knowledge or understanding to play those sounds.
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